The Newsletter of the Maine Humanities Council | Fall 2008

• Home
• Letter from the Executive Director
• Introducing the Humanities Tomorrow Society
• Fear, Civil Liberties, and the Rule of Law
• New Perspectives: Under-
  standing and addressing conflict
• Between Right and Wrong
• Supporting a Girls’ Point of View
• Grant Awards
• Power and Architecture in Rome

A LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The Maine Humanities Council brings people and ideas together to encourage a deeper understanding of ourselves and others, fostering wisdom in an age of information, providing context in a time of change.

A Broken Bunny and a Half-Eaten Camel:
Universal Lessons from Children’s Literature

It’s a pretty graphic scene: two children are pulling on a stuffed toy rabbit, until, with rending stitches, the horrified kids tumble backwards, each holding one cloth ear. The maimed bunny (still smiling) falls to the floor. In My Friend and I, Portland author Lisa Jahn-Clough portrays this typical drama: the clash, the ensuing period of chilly relations, and the eventual reconciliation. It’s a solvable conflict, with a storybook ending, as both the bunny and the friendship are soon patched up.

But what happens when things don’t go so well? Qayb Libaax is a Somali fable, whose title translates as “The Lion’s Share.” It has recently been retold by Said Salah Ahmed and published as a picture book by the Minnesota Humanities Center, our counterpart in that state. In this tale, a group of animals hunts down a camel, and then tries to divide the meat equitably between themselves and the thuggish lion who rules their part of the dry riverbed. The lion insists on an unreasonable share, and because he is, after all, a lion, there is little the other animals can do but comply. Here there is no hero, no resolution, no justice. It is, alas, a conflict that is every bit as recognizable as the story of the broken bunny, but far less resolved. Like so many problems in our society—from the playground, to the workplace, to the battlefield—it’s a situation that just is.

These are but two of the many stories that we’ve been using in the Maine Humanities Council’s Peaceable Stories initiative, a project that uses literature to explore questions of conflict. Stories like this can generate substantive conversations around broad topics of peace, violence, and justice, whether the participants are preschoolers, teachers, or adult new readers.

In keeping with our long-held conviction that the humanities can be a tool for social change, it’s always exciting to me when reading and discussion can be brought to bear on real issues. Whether it’s a children’s book, an essay, or a novel, literature can be a kind of secret empathy weapon, giving readers of all ages a chance to walk in different shoes and see the world through different eyes. It is, in fact, one of the few weapons whose use we actually encourage through Peaceable Stories.

Erik Jorgensen
Executive Director